Review

Control starts off by sounding genuinely groundbreaking. “Fireflies” works wonders opening such a schizophrenic electronic release, too-- it creates a substantial stratosphere where you can feel the breeze spiraling past you, until the entrance of the drums turns everything upside-down, and you're plummeting toward the ground in a daze.

No matter what styles he’s acquainting himself with at the time, Ital Tek has always wanted to make you move. Ital Tek’s latest “minialbum” accomplishes this brand of rhythmic puppeteering in points, and it about convinces the listener that this is the record that consistently rattles and shakes the dancefloor. The electronic producer’s eccentric works have duped us before, though, haven’t they? One listen of 2012’s Nebula Dance will tell you Ital Tek doesn’t quite have a specialty, but rather that he enjoys taking what he enjoys from a wide palette of genres. And a spin of his most recent EP Hyper Real will tell you he’s all about crafting bangers with the rhythmic agility of drum and bass, but with the backing of exotic instruments that make the experience akin to a chaotic bus ride in an unfamiliar country. So, then, what is there to make of Control’s feathery footwork and seraphic scenery when considering it may simply exist as a stepping stone for the Brighton-based producer, as opposed to some sort of stylistic destination?

I wouldn’t bring this point up if Control didn’t sound utterly lacking throughout much of its runtime. For each dose of blistering percussion that jolts the listener awake, there’s a relaxant of a track that put them to sleep right before it. This sort of zigzagging dichotomy makes the album only hit when in full gear, but perhaps that’s expected from a producer who’s already tried a handful of genres within electronic music. It isn’t hard to imagine that half of Control comes across as hesitant because it’s musing about what it could be. After all, Lord knows the next Ital Tek release will be yet another deviation from the norm-- the “norm” being a definitive lack thereof.

So cheers to Ital Tek for leaving both himself and his fanbase in the dark. The process of watching the husk of his music expand and contract, over and over again like a frightened blowfish, has been disorienting and rewarding. But along the way, no matter how inconsistent the producer’s releases may be, it seems they’ll never lose those high-key moments that remind us why we’re paying attention in the first place.

It means take the 3 seconds to fingerpunch it into google yourself, man.

The term Seraph is often used as a synonym for angel, etc. Thus, seraphic, or essentially "of or being
seraph-like." Not that's not the actual definition.

Didn't mean to come off angry douche-like, but succeeded. Seriously though, sometimes it kind of
boggles my mind that more or less the collective knowledge of the world is at your fingertips and yet
we bother to ask strangers mundane questions that we could much more easily (and rewardingly) answer
ourselves. /rant or whatever.

Thanks for the honesty guys, I reworded the first two paragraphs a bit so they should read more smoothly. I'm keeping the general ideas, but some of the awkward wording has been amended.

Haven't been writing as consistently lately, it's a shame it seems to show but ah well. Regardless, I was just wanting to get this some exposure-- really cool album that's tiresome at points, but enjoyable as a whole.

Yeah I have no complaints about a seeming lack of expertise in electronic - I didn't really notice at all.
Throughout, some of your sentences are (or were? sorry, didn't go back and re-read post-edit) just really unclear and cryptic (highlighted in the first paragraph), and that's worsened by some unclear tenses and pronouns.

But yeah, I really enjoyed Midnight Colour so I'm happy to hear that the outlook on this is similar.

Feel free to take another look at the review and point out anything egregious you may see. You're a harsh critic, which means you can be far more helpful than other users in this regard.

And yeah man, I'm sure you'll find something enjoyable about this! I know some like Josh prefer Ital's earlier releases like Midnight, but I'd actually probs say I like his more recent footwork-esque style.

I think out of all the producers who have decided to hop on the chi town bandwagon, Ital does it better than most. But by the same token, outside of the old school footwork producers, I am getting tired of hearing its sound. It's gone from groundbreaking to another cliche. "Oh, he's doing footwork as well now?" etc